


- aurora australis - the southern lights -

by otter



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 15:10:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otter/pseuds/otter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Living in an alien city really makes you an intergalactic explorer, even if you never leave home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	- aurora australis - the southern lights -

They weren't conducting a routine survey or structural integrity check when they found the room; they weren't even on the clock, really, and the fact that they were still working only meant that they didn't actually have anything better to do.

Radek was punching away at his data-pad (perhaps if we realign the... no, no, that would cause the entire south pier to sink into the ocean), and muttering to himself in Czech. Rodney was reading a report from one of his subordinates, already mentally composing his scathing rebuttal (and furthermore, your theories are all rooted in the basic supposition that all of the laws of physics are merely suggestions, and apply only when it's convenient for you), and muttering to himself in obscenities.

With those tasks occupying their minds, neither spared much thought for the transporter. They stepped in at the same time, bumped shoulders and drifted apart again, like objects in space. Rodney stabbed a finger at the control panel, and Radek held his breath while he waited for the vaguely queasy being-transported feeling to stop.

As the doors were opening, Rodney said, "Did Lauritsen suffer some kind of blow to the head while I was off-world? I only ask because according to this new theory of his, two plus two equals purple."

"Perhaps he was poisoned by yesterday's supper," Radek said, absently, as he stepped out of the transporter. "It was pulverized MRE crackers over gray-meat stew. Never in my most horrifying dreams could I have imagined such a casserole. You would have loved it."

"Oh," Rodney said, and it was a sad little disappointed noise, but delivered with a tone that suggested that Rodney had already moved on past the grief. He stopped just outside the transporter doors and finally looked up from his data-pad to orient himself. "Oh," he said again, and this time it was a sharper, more annoyed sound. "Blackouts again, huh? Don't tell me you let Vinders make more 'improvements' to the power grid."

Radek looked up too, freeing one hand so he could push his glasses up a bit onto the bridge of his nose. "No," he said. "There have been no blackouts."

Rodney waved a hand at the room in front of them, filled with nothing but darkness as if they'd stepped out into space. The only illumination came from the weak backlight glow of their own data-pads and the spill of orange stained-glass from the transporter doors, which were closing discreetly behind them. Even that light didn't begin to penetrate the darkness around them. "Looks pretty black to me," Rodney said. "One might even say blacked _out_."

The last word echoed out into the room and came back multiplied, a dozen voices that didn't sound much like Rodney at all, whispering, " _Out_."

Radek jumped, and would've been grateful for the cover of darkness, if the darkness hadn't been so creepy. "This is not the dining hall," he said, in a low tone that he hoped to God wouldn't echo like that again.

"Ah, no," Rodney agreed, even quieter. He was already edging backwards, toward the transporter doors. "Must've hit the wrong button. No problem. We'll just get back in and--" His back hit the transporter doors with a soft thump.

The doors didn't open. Instead, the light inside the transport chamber faded low, and then went out entirely.

Radek clutched his data-pad tightly to his chest with one hand, and used the other to push on the doors, as if they might suddenly become the revolving variety. "Where did you send us?" he hissed. "This can't be a cleared area; there's no power."

"I see that," Rodney said, with only the slightest note of impending hysteria in his voice, underneath all that cranky sarcasm. "I also noticed that this end of the transport system isn't powered, either. Any other gems of brilliantly obvious insight you'd like to share?" He was already fumbling for the access panel next to the transporter doors, trying to hold up his data-pad like a flashlight. "Call in; maybe they can route over some temporary power, bring the transporter back online and get us the hell out of here."

Radek nodded, his hand already on his earpiece, turning the radio on. "Zelenka to command center," he said. "We need assistance."

The comms didn't answer, not even with static. The silence would've been complete and absolute, if it weren't for Radek's breathing and Rodney's muttered, "Come on, come on, come on," to the Ancient circuitry.

"Command," Radek said again. "Is anyone there?"

Rodney grunted his irritation, thumped at the darkened control panel with the side of his fist, and keyed his own radio. "McKay to _anybody_ ," he said. "Emergency here. Somebody answer."

The radios remained silent, but out in the darkness, there was a low, slow hiss, like scales against the floor.

They both froze for a moment, and Rodney was wide-eyed and pale in the glow of their screens. "I've seen this movie," Rodney said. "Everybody dies in the end." His hands moved a little faster in the guts of the wall panel, but the transporter wasn't waking up.

The hiss came again, and a sound like a sigh, and Radek held his data-pad a little closer, tried to cast more light on Rodney's hands. He very resolutely did not look out into that thick, crouching blackness, didn't want to see what might be coming. The sound was getting louder.

Rodney said, "Come on, _work_!" with a note of real desperation in his voice now.

As if in response, the thing out in the blackness suddenly flared to life.

It was just a light at first, a pale glow like a street lamp, and then the light separated and defined itself, turned into tiny ropes of brilliant orange, whipping around and around each other and blinking like runway lights. There was a sound too, like the throbbing heartbeat of some awakening leviathan; it rebounded off the walls and became an orchestra composed entirely of bass instruments.

Radek squinted at it with his mouth hanging open, and said, "What is that?" as if Rodney would know.

"That's usually the kind of sound things make before they explode," Rodney answered. He only spared the light show a glance, then turned back to prodding at the open control panel. "Elizabeth?" he said, voice raised to be heard over the noise. "Major? Anyone? Now would be a really great time for a last-minute rescue."

"Rodney," Radek said. "Have you noticed there are no walls?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Rodney told him, without even a moment's delay to consider the question. "Of course there are," but when he finally looked, there was still blackness to all sides, even though the acoustics of the room revealed that it couldn't possibly be that big, that the light of that whatever-it-was should've been illuminating all the walls and the -- "floor!" Rodney leapt to his feet as if he was certain that he was going to sink through all that darkness and drown. "There's no floor!"

Radek said, "Hm," and tapped his toe against the floor, which was definitely there, but possibly invisible. "Some sort of non-reflective surface?" he wondered aloud. "Perhaps the floor simply absorbs the light." But there was a depth to the non-view, a sense of an open gulf beneath them. "Or it is transparent, and incredibly non-reflective?"

Rodney was staring down into the endless black beneath his feet and said, "I think I'm going to be sick," in the sort of weak, wavering voice that made Radek think that maybe Rodney wasn't just playing it up this time.

"Don't look at the floor," Radek said. "Look at the light. There's nothing else to look at down here, anyway." But he kept looking at the floor himself, fascinated, because this was a feeling like floating in space, like being utterly weightless in a vast expanse of emptiness. It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time, like standing on top of a very tall building and feeling an insane urge to fly.

Then he saw something out of the corner of his eye, a flash of not-blackness, and when he looked it was there again, framed between his feet: an answering strobe of color from somewhere far, far below them.

The orange light pulsed excitedly, and spun a little faster.

"Oh God," Rodney said. "What is that?"

Radek glanced up, but Rodney hadn't caught sight of the light below them; he was looking off to the left, at little floating pinpoints of light that were coming closer, flitting around each other and occasionally colliding, like fireflies drawn to a porch light. And there were more of them, too, appearing from all directions out of the darkness but not quite bright enough to banish it.

To Radek's right, one of them had approached near enough to take shape, to reveal a distinguishable form. Radek stepped closer -- ignoring Rodney's little sound of alarm -- and there was a wall, after all; the edge of his data pad clunked against something, and when he held up a hand, there was the wall right there, cool and solid under his palm.

The thing on the other side of the glass drew nearer too, and brushed against the barrier like it was trying to touch Radek's hand. It was mostly transparent, but there was a shape there, and the rushing rivers of greenish-blue light that flowed through it like blood defined the borders of its body.

"It's bioluminescent," Radek said. He slid his hand up the glass, and the thing followed, floating upward with a little twitch of its broad manta-ray fins. "We're under the ocean. They're some sort of... fish."

And there were lots of them now, clustering around the edges of what turned out to be a relatively small, round room, gathering like a curious crowd just beyond the barrier, the glow of them lighting up the whole space, and all of them clustering close, lured in by the pulsing orange light that was still spinning itself dizzy in the center of the room.

Rodney's face was washed in alternating blue and yellow from the two brightest creatures closest to him, but he still managed to look pale. "Great," he said. " _Great_. Have I mentioned my overwhelming fear of jellyfish?"

"Jellyfish?" Radek repeated. He tapped his fingers against the wall and the thing on the other side wiggled its fins at him.

"I got stung by a jellyfish when I was twelve," Rodney said. "Some vacation _that_ was. Stupid things are clear, you don't even see them until you swim right into them." Rodney looked around at the light show -- creatures all around now, even under their feet -- and crossed his arms over his chest, clutching his data-pad tightly in one hand. "Did you ever see that movie 'The Abyss'? This is just like that, but less moving. Frankly, I'm a little disappointed. Next thing you know we'll meet a cute little alien that wants to 'phone home.' This whole galaxy is so _derivative_."

Radek's glowing manta ray swam away, chased off by either a very large glowing eel or a very large glowing water snake. "For a man who explores alien planets daily, you are very cowardly. Oh, look at this. This one has tentacles, they look like they're half a kilometre long!" He pointed out into the ocean, face pressed up against the glass like the proverbial kid in a candy store as the Atlantean jellyfish swam by. "Medeiros and Lachance are going to be living down here when they find out about this place," he said.

"Well, I hope they take the time to clear out our cold, dead corpses first," Rodney replied, already turning back to the transporter, the only visibly solid object in the whole of the sea, and the only one that was refusing to light up.

"I'm sure they will," Radek said, not even bothering with the argument. "Or, we could turn off that machine. Perhaps it is what's blocking our radio signals."

"Ooh," Rodney said, like that was the most exciting thing he'd ever heard, and he was already spinning around and approaching the machine instead, looking for a place to plug in his data-pad so he could get his fingers into the code.

Radek left him to it for the time being, confident that Rodney would complain loudly about Radek's work ethic if he needed any help. He certainly didn't need any additional light; the sea creatures were thick around the outside of the room now, crowding in and jostling each other, all jockeying for position to find the best view of the machine. Rodney just looked like a less spectacular member of the crowd, crouched next to the floating object with the backlight from his data-pad splashing his face with pale blue.

Far beneath them, something roughly the size of Baltimore swam slowly by, and two strips of luminescence along its back strobed out a faint greeting as it passed. Radek decided not to mention it to Rodney. He wiggled his fingers at a little jellyfish and it wiggled itself back, its light flushing dark red and then purple.

"Okay, abject failure here," Rodney said after awhile, obviously manfully resisting the urge to drop his data-pad to the floor and punt it across the room. The device was still thrumming; Radek could feel the vibration of it deep in his chest. "This thing doesn't even have an off switch. It's like the Ancient equivalent of a nightlight."

Radek said, "Hm," and drummed his fingers against the not-glass wall. One of the creatures on the other side darted away, startled, and left behind a cloud of bright ink like the spilled contents of a glowstick. "It turned on when you were trying to get the transporter to work."

Rodney frowned at the lure, wrapped one arm around his own ribs and used that to prop up his other elbow so he could press the tip of his thumb against his lips. "You think the circuitry is tied in to the transporter controls?"

Radek said, "No--"

But Rodney was already catching up, snapped his fingers and said, "No, _mental_ component."

"Exactly," Radek agreed. "Use the Force, young Jedi." He squinted his eyes and pressed his fingers against his temples in the universal signal for use of psychic powers.

Rodney gave him a look -- the 'I can't believe you just made such an obvious joke' look -- but when he turned back to the lure he was squinting too, and not because of the orange light flashing in front of his face.

Radek was about to tell him not to strain anything, but when he opened his mouth to speak the lure abruptly winked out, taking the noise with it. The lure dropped to the floor and spun a few more times like a top, then rolled to a stop and didn't move again.

"Huh," Rodney said into the sudden quiet, and prodded the silent lure with the toe of his shoe. It didn't budge.

Out in the ocean, the animals began to drift away, and they looked almost disappointed, like a teenage party broken up by the arrival of responsible adults.

"Why do you suppose the Ancients would have built such a room?" Radek asked, feeling more than a little melancholy himself as his favorite creature -- the broad-winged not-quite-manta-ray -- drifted back into the darkness. "Were they luring specimens for scientific study?"

"Maybe," Rodney said. "Maybe this is just the really boring Ancient version of entertainment. Maybe it's a... an _aquatheatre_."

Radek blinked at him and said, "I see why Major Sheppard does not allow you to name anything." Before Rodney could protest -- Radek had a lot of experience with rushing into the next thing before Rodney could complain about whatever he'd just said -- he touched his earpiece and said, "Zelenka to command. Can anyone hear me?"

There was a hiss of static this time -- encouraging -- and then Weir's voice, tin-can hollow: "Doctor Zelenka, we've been trying to reach you. We're picking up some strange readings from the spires beneath the city; we need you in command immediately. And do you know where Doctor McKay is?"

Rodney rolled his eyes, flipped on his own radio, and hunkered back down next to the transporter control. "Yes, yes," he said. "Strange energy readings. Imagine that. We'll tell you all about it just as soon as you get us _out_ of here. I need power in this section."

Zelenka joined him, holding up his own data-pad to light the control panel again, since all the creatures had more or less vanished back into the deeper spaces of the sea. He sighed, a little sad that the more pleasant company had abandoned him to Rodney's mercies, and looked down at the open ocean beneath him.

Rodney was saying, " _Yes,_ thank you," in that way he had, and the transporter finally sputtered to life, glowing with lights in subdued sandy tones, not at all like the vibrant display of the fish.

Between Radek's feet, deep down in the ocean, that enormous something passed by again, and strobed out a little goodbye. Radek waved back, but Rodney was already pulling him into the powered-up transporter, one hand fisted in Radek's jacket.

"You okay?" Rodney asked, when the doors were closing.

"Fine," Radek said, but he closed his eyes against the too-bright interior of the transporter, and he could still see the ghost of those ocean lights behind his eyelids.

the end


End file.
